"Upon the great bed sat Adele, steady-eyed as ever, but very pale. She might have been Eve, as Milton had pictured her, sitting upon the green bank, looking into the pool."
-Dornford Yates, Perishable Goods (London, 1938), CHAPTER IX, p. 275.
Our common mother, Eve, passes from Genesis to Paradise Lost to a twentieth century novel and, of course, is in the collective consciousness.
Adele declares:
"'I wasn't afraid of "Rose" Noble - I told him so. I. I told him he hadn't an earthly and that, if he took me to Hell, you'd follow me down and break him and carry me back.'"
-ibid., p. 279.
Adele does not expect to be taken literally to Hell but that is precisely what does happen to Valeria Matucheck in Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos and to Abigail Arcane in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. Both are rescued. The figure on the attached Operation Chaos cover image resembles a demonic Swamp Thing.
For another meaning of Operation CHAOS, see here.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
And I appreciated how Jerry Pournelle mentioned Anderson in his posthumous novel MAMELUKS. As does S.M. Stirling in some of his stories.
Ad Astra! Sean
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